The life lessons of So You Think You Can Dance

So You Think You Can Dance is a dance competition where young and lithe dancers compete in all genres of dance,  starting with 20 dancers,  with 10 being the magic cut off (they go on the group tour afterwards) and the top 6 being the lucky memorable ones, culminating in one America’s most popular dancer...

We watch it every week. They are leaping and pirouetting and strutting, their strengths and weaknesses out there for everyone to see and critique. After their dance, soaking with sweat and not yet having caught their breath, the judges talk about the straightness of their lines and how high their shoulders were. 

And at the end of every show, they huddle together like puppies and watch as one of them is sent away.

And the life lesson I learn?  Be willing to risk it all.  They are so brave!  They really try so hard and they are talented, but most importantly they are out there.  They have, as the judges so often like to say, left everything out on the floor. They don’t hold back to protect themselves. Their vulnerability is sometimes hard to see, but their striving is so admirable.  I love watching them, and I do hate to see any of them go.  I know I was not as brave as them when I was their age.  I was too busy protecting myself, unwilling to risk that sort of public judgment/failure. But they haven’t failed.  They are lifting both themselves and their far less agile audience up.  I wish them all the best of luck, but I wish us all their courage.  If you want something, put it all out there, leave nothing on the floor.  You may not get it, but you will know that you truly tried, and you will absolutely learn the right life lessons on the way… 

What do Tarot readings give you

A good tarot reading shows you how the present is creating your future.  Your actions today are the foundation for tomorrow’s accomplishments or failures.

The Tarot is like a pure clear mirror, showing you where you are putting your energy now, and how that is going to affect the future.  It illuminates what you know, but then shows you how your present is going to impact the next 6 months. 

by John Breitweiser

One of the most common responses I get it is ‘you’re right, you’re right,  I knew this, and now I can see how it’s playing out.’  My most difficult readings are when people don’t want to talk about the present, they just want a different future, and I have the heavy task of telling them that the future will be no different,  if they don’t alter what they are doing now…

New Schedule

Sometimes the universe sends you messages –

Ace of Pentacles,  from Steampunk tarot

Lately I have had a spate of requests for shorter/cheaper readings.  I know that the hour gives people enough time to get their questions thoroughly answered, but I also know that $140 can be a bit steep.  So I’ve decided two things –

Firstly my hour long readings are now permanently $120 and won’t be returning to $140 in the near future.

Secondly I will offer a limited amount of half hour readings each week for $70.   Guess we will have to talk faster!  I’ll try this for the rest of August and September and see how the half hour option works...

9 of Pentacles, by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law - Shadowscapes

Queen of Cups

 When you look at the Queen of Cups, the woman entranced with the fantastical cup that she has created, it is a warning from the cards not too get too lost in your own thoughts, to make sure your fantasies match reality. 

 But that can sound a bit judgmental.  I found this amazing mosaic by Irina Charny,  (I just love her work!) and to me it just looked like the Queen of Cups.  Here the Queen is losing herself in her own music,  and that just felt to me like a much more loving way of viewing her.  

 I just have to edit this because I saw this beautiful Queen of Cups by Robert Scott - the artist whose deck I bought through Kickstart a while ago (he's yet to finish it,  but it's definitely going to be worth the wait!)

and this is what he writes about her:
"The Queen of Cups represents the role of water in the context of water; the emotional center of the court cards. She is kind, affectionate and comforting. She is perfectly accepting - receiving others without judgement of any kind, and stands for calm reflection and introspection. She is the queen of the still pond, the surface of which is a mirror. The Queen's own nature is hard to grasp, for when you gaze into her depths, you only see yourself."

Was he unfaithful?

One question I find the tarot can always accurately answer is ‘ is s/he having an affair’ 

However recently I did a reading where a woman asked,  ‘did he sleep with other people while we were together?’ and she drew 

King pentacles / 9 of swords / 6 cups R / 4 cups. 

She felt he could have been a good boyfriend/ but also felt huge anxiety/ she needed to see the situation very clearly, without rose tinted glasses or being overly romantic/ and she was getting lost in her own thoughts.

That is not a clear answer and I was puzzled.  Usually the cards are really specific around this question.

6 of cups

 

So I asked more about the relationship.  Turned out her big fear was that he would be pressured by his family to have an arranged marriage.

Now I can understand the cards. They indicate that he did not sleep with anyone else while they were together, but he was emotionally unfaithful; he did let his family introduce him to other women.  There was no sex, but he did think about marrying them…   

The second I said that she nodded vigorously, that made complete sense to her.

4 of cups

Those cards, they are so subtle...

Loving what we want to see

A friend and I were discussing the recent movie version of the Great Gastby,  and I said something like,  Gatsby's tragedy was that he didn't even know Daisy,  he never really saw her.   And it reminded me of this quote from Gone with the Wind...

 “I loved something I made up, something that’s just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn’t see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes—and not him at all.”
Scarlett in Gone with the Wind

People come and tell me things like this all the time... it's so important to see the person as they truly are,  and not put your own suit on them...

Flirting with New York

Often people come to me, knowing that the old relationship is over, but still entangled with that person, and ask me if they should date other people.  The cards often tell them that they need a break, to give them time to adjust to their new situation - they draw the 4 swords or the hermit.   

But doing nothing is hard: you feel empty, you want some action to fill the void.  So I tell them to go and flirt with New York. This is an amazing city, but it’s also a tough one.  If we don’t take advantage of all the marvelous things that go on here, we are paying the price of living here – huge cost of living, crowds, lack of personal and psychic space – without taking the benefits.  

 

So I tell them go out with humans (as opposed to dating) old friends, new friends, potential friends, and flirt with New York. Find music, lectures, theatre, and museums.  It doesn’t have to be intellectual, go to new restaurants, comedy shows, and find the best Bloody Mary in the city or the perfect brunch place. Go play tennis,  cycle,  improve your one mile time.   Flirt with the city and that will help let the old feelings go and give space for new relationships to start.